News Brief, 3 March 2014

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, stressing upgradation of the traditional early warning and disaster mitigation system, said international cooperation for exchange of weather data and information is very important for disaster management globally. "We've to ensure proper application of latest technology with our conventional system for upgrading our existing early warning and mitigation activities,” she said, inaugurating the 41st Session of WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea held at the International Conference Center of the Prime Minister's Office yesterday. She said the WMO/ESCAP Panel on Tropical Cyclones is an inter-governmental organisation for promotion and coordination of such activities in the panel area, and the people of this region are getting benefits out of it. She mentioned that under the financial and technical assistance of JICA, three sophisticated Doppler radars have been installed at Cox's Bazar, Khepupara and Moulvibazar. Moreover, the conventional radars of Dhaka and Rangpur will be replaced by other two sophisticated Doppler radars. Similarly, she said, a project has been taken up to reduce accidents of river going vessels through issuance of advance forecast of impending hazardous weather. Also, to run the latest numerical model, high performance computers will be installed and automatic weather stations will be established through a project for introduction of numerical weather prediction system.